Gay marriage in court

The US Supreme Court has decided to take up the issue of gay marriage and will hear challenges to a federal law that denies benefits to same-sex couples and California's ban on such unions.

The highest US court will probably hear arguments in the cases in March next year, with rulings to come in June. Same-sex marriage is legal in nine states and Washington but barred in 30 other states.

Campaigners on both sides of the debate hailed the court's decision on Friday to take up the issue.

The court took up one challenge to a 1996 law that defines marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman and denies federal benefits to married same-sex couples. Benefits denied to same-sex couples include inheritance rights, tax breaks, filing of joint income tax returns and health insurance coverage.

In February last year, the Attorney-General, Eric Holder, said he and the President, Barack Obama, had concluded the law, laid out in the Defence of Marriage Act, was unconstitutional and unworthy of defence in court. But conservative campaigners are urging the Supreme Court to rule that the act is constitutional.

The case concerns two New York City women, Edith Windsor and Thea Clara Spyer, who were married in 2007 in Canada. Ms Spyer died in 2009 and Ms Windsor inherited her property.

The act did not allow the Internal Revenue Service to treat Ms Windsor as a surviving spouse and she faced a tax bill of about $US360,000 that a spouse in an opposite-sex marriage would not have had to pay.

Ms Windsor, 83, said she was ''absolutely thrilled'' that the court had agreed to hear her case. ''I wish Thea was here to see what is going on. I know how proud she would have been to see this day. The truth is, I never expected any less from my country.''

The Supreme Court will rule whether the act violates the guarantee of equal protection under the law in accordance with the fifth amendment of the US constitution.

It will also decide if the Obama administration's position that the act is unconstitutional deprives the Supreme Court of jurisdiction, and whether a complaint by some US legislators has legal standing.

The other case taken up was brought by supporters of Proposition 8, a referendum that passed in California in 2008 that defined marriage as being between a ''man and a woman'' but was overturned by a court of appeal.

If the Supreme Court rejects their appeal, California - the country's most populous state - will in effect become the 10th state to permit gay marriage.

In Hollingsworth v Perry, the court will decide whether the 14th amendment of the US constitution, which requires states to provide equal protection under the law to all people, prohibits California from banning gay marriage.

In Britain, David Cameron is facing a clash between church and state and the biggest Tory rebellion since gaining power after announcing that homosexual couples will be able to marry in churches, mosques, synagogues or temples. It is a reversal of the position earlier this year, which proposed a blanket ban on same-sex ceremonies on religious premises. Those wanting to carry out same sex weddings will now be able to ''opt in''.

Ministers insist that a series of ''multiple lock'' legal safeguards will prevent religious groups that refuse to carry out same-sex marriages facing challenges under human rights laws.

But a former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, said the shift made a ''mockery'' of consultation and would ''boomerang'' on the Conservatives.